


Knocked Up

by wheel_pen



Series: Malachite [7]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 21:52:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3265640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malachite is facing a big responsibility, and discusses it with Luks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knocked Up

            Luks didn’t look up from his paperwork when the door to his study banged open—only one person in the house dared to barge in on him without knocking. He _did_ find it odd when there was no exuberant greeting, however, and turned towards the doorway with a slight frown. The frown deepened when he saw his normally animated boy wearing a subdued, frustrated expression. Malachite wandered over to the desk, feet dragging, and pushed himself up to sit on the surface, legs clad in obscenely tight black jeans dangling down on either side of Luks’s. The older man decided it was a good idea his computer was currently off to the side, because Malachite hadn’t so much as _looked_ at what he was crushing when he plopped down on the blotter.

            Luks gave him a moment to explain himself, but the boy just heaved a sigh and picked at his fingernails. Luks rubbed the inside of his thigh, more as a comforting gesture than an enticing once. “How’s your day?” he asked leadingly, abandoning his work for the moment. The boy was sitting on much of it anyway.

            Malachite shrugged without looking up. Luks continued kneading his leg, trying to be patient. Obviously something was bothering the teenager, and while Luks had a pretty good idea what that was, he also knew he couldn’t just _force_ him to discuss it.

            “Ahnah might be pregnant,” Malachite finally revealed, with characteristic bluntness.

            “I heard,” Luks assured him calmly, and the boy nodded without surprise. There was little that went on in his household that Luks _hadn’t_ heard about. “What do you think about that?”

            Malachite opened his mouth, shut it, took a breath, looked away, looked back at Luks, and finally exclaimed angrily, “Everyone thinks that I should be—happy about it, or upset, or nervous, or excited, or _something_. But all I keep thinking,” he continued with a frustrated sigh, “is that pretty soon she’ll get fat and won’t want to have sex.” He looked up, emerald green eyes meeting Luks’s uncertainly. “Is that bad?”

            Luks rubbed his other leg, pleased to feel some tension leaving it. “Not for someone who’s used to stud service,” he decided evenly. “You’re not _supposed_ to care that you’ve gotten a woman pregnant, except that you’ve gotten your job done. You don’t have to worry about _raising_ the child, or providing for it. You’re not even supposed to think about the children being _out_ there.”

            Malachite was nodding vigorously. “Yeah, yeah, we never thought of it like that. The girls just came and went. If they got knocked up, that was good ‘cause we’d made money for the business, but that’s all.” He shook his dark head. “But Mrs. Sevileri kept going on about how exciting it was, and Mr. Sevileri was all like, ‘This is a big responsibility’”—Luks smirked a little at Malachite’s impression of the earnest farmer—“and Ahnah—she was, I dunno, _scared_ or something...”

            “Well, she’s never been pregnant before,” Luks reasoned. “It _is_ a scary thing for her to go through. Especially if she isn’t sure she’ll have any help,” he added pointedly.

            Malachite looked up at him through thick eyelashes. “What should I do?” he asked, trusting whole-heartedly in his master’s response.

            The older man mulled it over for a moment, assessing his phrasing. “Well, when I gave Ahnah to you,” he finally began, “I told you she was your responsibility. This is just another part of that responsibility.” Malachite nodded slowly. “Take Ahnah to the doctor, find out for certain if she’s pregnant. They can tell you what you need to know about pregnancy, give you some books to read. But you’ll have to make sure Ahnah goes to all her appointments, eats right, exercises. Think you can handle that?” The boy nodded dutifully, and Luks knew Ahnah would be on an infuriatingly strict diet and exercise program before the end of the week. Malachite could be surprisingly determined when he had a direction in which to focus his considerable energy.

            Luks could tell by the thoughtful expression on the teenager’s face that his questions weren’t completely answered, however. “What about...” he began, absently scuffing the side of Luks’s chair with his foot. His master stopped the potentially destructive movement with his hand and raised an eyebrow to encourage his question. “What about _after_ the kid’s born?”

            Luks had wondered when he would get around to that. “What do you think?” he asked, curious to hear the boy’s response.

            Malachite shifted uncomfortably on the desk. “People used to pay a lot of money for me to sire a child for them,” he began slowly, not really looking at Luks. “But I don’t really know... I mean, what did they want them for?” He met his master’s eyes with a troubled expression, and the older man raised his eyebrows as if asking the boy to guess for himself. “They’d probably be stronger and faster and not get sick very often,” the teenager reasoned tentatively. “They could be, like... laborers. Like working on a farm like the Sevileris’.”

            He seemed happy about this prospect, thinking of his offspring working outdoors with the animals, but Luks shook his head. “Far too valuable to be manual laborers,” he refuted, rubbing the boy’s knee. “In the past, some explorers tried to get people with... certain abilities to be part of their expeditions...”

            “That’s kind of neat,” the boy commented, brightening slightly. “Where would they explore?”

            “The far north, usually,” Luks replied, “but that would be prohibitively expensive now.”

            “Oh.” Disappointed, Malachite thought some more. “Stud service?” he suggested, unconvinced.

            Luks shrugged. “Maybe some, but not a lot. You’re almost pure Iqniq,” he reminded the boy, “but most of your children would only be half. That’s still pretty good, of course, but then _their_ children would only be a quarter, and the line gets diluted pretty quickly.”

            The teenager nodded in agreement, not having really thought about it that way. “Too expensive to be, like, janitors and waiters and stuff,” he mused, trying to think it through. “And it’s illegal for people with too much Iqniq blood to be professional athletes...”

            “Unfortunate but true,” Luks concurred, grimacing slightly as he thought of an expensive bet made in his youth that had scratched for this very reason. After a moment he could see the boy was running out of ideas, getting frustrated, so the older man decided to supply him with the answer. “Most slaves that are about a quarter to half Iqniq,” he started, “become bodyguards, or private sexual companions. Often both at the same time.”

            Malachite blinked at him. “Really?”

            “Mm-hmm,” Luks nodded, rubbing the other knee now. “They tend to be quite good-looking, and with greater stamina, strength, etc., which makes them very appealing to customers with means.”

            “Like you,” Malachite decided, smiling a little. “I’d be your bodyguard, Luks,” he added playfully.

            Luks was glad to see his mood lightening. “Well, if someone tried to kill me in your presence, I would certainly hope you’d intervene,” he commented dryly. “But I’m afraid that in general you wouldn’t make very good bodyguard material.”

            “I wouldn’t?” the boy protested, only half-serious. “I’d protect you, I wouldn’t be scared or anything.”

            “But would you have protected my father?” Luks could see from the expression on the boy’s face what the answer to _that_ question was. “The preferred bodyguard is one whose temperament allows him or her to protect their owner no matter how they’re treated.”

            “That’s dumb.” That profundity hung in the air for a few moments as Malachite thought the matter over, and Luks could tell he was troubled by something again. “I don’t... I wouldn’t...” he began awkwardly, trying to figure out what he wanted to say. “If my... kid, that I knew or something, was sold to someone like your dad, who would be... mean, and... I wouldn’t like that very much.” He took a breath and tentatively met Luks’s gaze.

            Luks didn’t quite know how to respond to that. His first instinct was to assure the boy that his children with Ahnah would never be sold, or that at least Malachite would get to help choose their buyers. But Luks just couldn’t make himself say that out loud. The teenager had more independence and privileges than any other slave in the country, probably, especially considering Luks’s political position, and more sway with Luks than the older man cared to admit even to himself. So he stopped short of giving him even _more_ power and instead told him, “Well, there’s no need to worry about it right now. It’ll be fifteen years, at least, before it can be sold.” Luks could see that wasn’t exactly the answer Malachite had been looking for. “Until then, the child can be raised here, I suppose.”

            A smile burst across the teenager’s face as he decided to take what he could get in the short term. “Thanks, Luks!” he enthused, hopping off the desk and pulling his master into his arms.

            “Yes, well...” Luks carefully detached himself, watching the papers Malachite had dragged off the desk with him flutter around the room. “I _did_ consider this possibility when I _bought_ Ahnah for you, after all.”

            “Really?” The older man was fairly certain Malachite hadn’t considered it. “You’re the best!” he declared cheerfully, then started around the desk for the door. “I’m gonna go take Ahnah to the doctor now, if that’s okay.”

            “By all means,” Luks assured him, fighting the urge to retrieve the scattered bits of his work while Malachite was still present.

            “Okay. Bye!” The door banged shut behind the boy and Luks sighed, dropping to the floor to pick up the wrinkled pages. He wouldn’t want to see Malachite’s children go to someone like his father, either, but three or four little creatures like _his_ boy running around the house might be more than he could handle.


End file.
